A failing of our imperfect memories is to see the past with rose tinted glasses. Nostalgia clouds our perception and it is easy to believe that things were simpler in the past. Take the recent flurry of product launches by both ATI and NVIDIA. Despite the fact that there are only two major GPU powerhouses in the market now, there seems to be no respite from the countless models, variants and brands introduced on an increasing frequency from both companies. Add to that, the various suffixes they have attached to their products and there are so many choices for consumers now. Was there such a surfeit of choices last time? The simple fact is, the market is growing (as compared to yester-years) and the GPU designers are responding appropriately.

While having more choices is almost always considered a good thing, the scenario we face now is more akin to confusion. In addition to short-lived product lines that could have morphed into another 'newer' variant before you finish reading this sentence, we also have both ATI and NVIDIA pilfering suffixes from each other. So from NVIDIA, we have the just announced GeForce 6800 XT to add to the 6800 LE, 6800 GT, and 6800 Ultra. Not to mention the 'naked' 6800 without suffixes. ATI is also guilty of this with the Radeon X800 GT, X800 GTO, to name but a few recent examples. Moreover, vendors too will add their own customization, like overclocked, special editions or with more frame buffer (and we can already imagine your eyes glazing over with boredom).

With ATI's next generation graphics cards on the horizon, you can expect more headaches the next time you decide to hunt for a new graphics card. It also means doing your own research becomes more important unless you like to be at the mercy of the sales staff, which isn't exactly a good idea. In order to help you make a more informed decision, we have prepared a review of a lesser-known ATI product, the Radeon X550.

The Radeon X550 was introduced with little fanfare by ATI in June as a better performing X300. It has the same core, the RV370 as the Radeon X300 but comes with a higher core clock speed of 400MHz compared to 325MHz for the X300. However, the number of pipelines remains the same at four pixel pipes and a pair of vertex engines. The boost in clock speed, together with its attractively low price makes the Radeon X550 a potent competitor to NVIDIA's GeForce 6200 cards. Now, what if we push the Radeon X550 even further? That is the question GeCube asked with its GC-RX550GU2-D3, an overclocked Radeon X550 256MB card that we are reviewing today.